Me: Not a chance. I’m a sore loser. Get your own champagne.
DK:
DK: Tonight at 10:00?
Me: Always.
I smile as I place the bottle in the fridge, already looking forward to his call.
Something stirs in my chest, brushing up against feelings I’m not ready to name. I’ve rushed into love before—fell too fast without knowing if they’d be there to catch me. I have the bruises to prove they weren’t.
But I don’t think DK’s like that.
And that makes it harder and harder to heed the speed bumps.
Chapter Twenty-Four
DK
Tomorrow.
One more day until the lake house.
One more day until the rest of the world falls away.
No campaign schedules, no secret glances, no hiding. Just us.
But as the anticipation builds, it’s shadowed by a sharp, jagged dread. I have to tell Luna about Washington. I have to reach into that dark part I’m loath to remember and pull it out into the light.
After work, I prop my iPad on the kitchen counter for my virtual session with Don. As I wait for the video to connect, the screen reflects a version of myself I’ve spent my professional life perfecting: the trimmed beard, crisp shirt, the steady, unblinking presence. The man who has his shit together.
Nearly seven months ago, that man shattered.
I still remember every detail like it was yesterday. The empty murmur of the office at 9:00 PM. The blue light of monitors glowing from the workstations, the sound of a vacuum getting closer as the cleaners made their rounds. I was packing up aftera typical fourteen-hour day, planning to do more work from home. My blood was singing with the usual cocktail: coffee, Red Bull, and caffeine pills. I reached for my briefcase when I suddenly felt lightheaded and dizzy, my hands were shaking. Not just the minor tremors I’d ignored several times before—this was violent quaking.
It spread fast. Coursing up my arm and ripping across my chest. Pain thrashed behind my ribs, and my entire body turned on itself. In seconds, the rough fibers of the carpet met my cheek, and the thick, suffocating darkness swallowed me.
The next thing I remember was waking up in a hospital bed. Bright fluorescent white. My mouth felt like it had been stuffed with wool. My arm was hooked up to an IV drip, and every beep of the monitors was a needle in my ear.
“DK.” My mother’s voice cut through the noise and fog of my brain. “Ngiyabonga Nkosi.”
At hearing her thank God, I blinked her into view. She wasn’t the same woman with a quick smile. Her eyes were rimmed with dark circles, and her once smooth face was ravaged with mournful lines.
I would soon learn that the cleaners found me, and I was rushed to Medstar, where I spent five days in the ICU, unresponsive. My family were gathered around, praying I would wake.
The doctor’s diagnosis was like a gavel.
“Complete systemic collapse,” she said. Not just that my body ran out of gas, the engine had seized. “Your heart was ‘red-lining,’ and your kidneys were starting to shut down. You are lucky to be alive.” She paused on that chilling note, then introduced me to Donavan Wright. The psychologist on call that day.
He was this George Costanza–looking dude with a bedside manner that was direct to the point of discomfort. I hated him at first. Hated the mirror he held up. Hated needing help.
Mostly, I hated the wordscomplete systemic collapseand what it made me feel.
Weak.
A failure.
Like I’d lost control of my own body and mind.
